We’re here to offer some guidance. Like to keep an emergency plumber on speed-dial for those kinds of moments when you hear a toilet flush, three seconds after you’ve called out for your keys to a mysteriously-missing toddler.

We’re here to offer some humility. Like when we freely admit that we’re not entirely aware of what regular showers once felt like, and that shaving our legs has become more of a luxury, than necessity. But if we must do it, and do it fast, conditioner and a high counter top will be the best nick-free, preschooler safe method.

We’re here to offer your nourishment. In fact, it’s kind of our little saying – We’re all about Nourishing Bellies and Souls.

Please, join us in our overjoyed welcome to our newest food contributor, Julie Van Rosendaal. You may already know her from one of her many food-obsessed ventures, like her delicious website, Dinner With Julie. But if not, trust us and you’ll see, she’s One Smart Cookie.

Julie lives and breathes food, so it makes sense that she would write about it, too, right? But Julie’s not just a food blogger or a playful chef. This lady’s a food writer, stylist and journalist, and even has four best-selling cookbooks’ publishing credits under her apron strings. She’s also: the Food and Nutrition columnist for the Calgary Eyeopener on CBC Radio One, a Good Bites cooking series contributor, the Food Editor at Parents Canada magazine and a co-host on Viva Network’s It’s Just Food.

Julie’s also a mom, so she knows that it can be so hard to find something tasty to feed your family, and that meal plans requiring extensive shopping journeys aren’t always possible – regardless of how decadent and delicious a dinner may be in the end.

Julie’s here to help us help you make health happen. Delicious, soul fortifying dinners await you, and for those days when you need something less hearty, and not so therapeutic, she’ll be there, too, sourcing and sharing some of the best recipes out there.

Did we forget to mention that each week, she’ll also be giving you one of her very own originals? We can’t wait to dive eyes-first into Julie’s meals and we think you’ll love the freshness she’s bringing to our already-adored Weekly Meal Plans.

Oh, and guess what? Julie’s fifth cookbook comes out this week. Obviously, she doesn’t have enough on her plate, right?! We’re so honoured to be able to share her expertise with our community. Can’t wait? You can check out Julie’s page right here (or tweet her) to send her a warm welcome, share your excitement, or offer to mail her cookies, for once.

Bon Appétit.

It was so energizing to have so many talented, fascinating and charismatic people in one place for the weekend. The speeches and presentations were very well done, the Voices of the Year were inspirational and the opportunities to meet people we admired endless.

The selection of morning and afternoon sessions made decision-making difficult as we surveyed our options and planned our days. Hearing directly from bloggers and writers who are walking the path and willing to share their experiences was both enjoyable and valuable. I think we all learned new things this weekend!

The parties were a fantastic time to meet, mingle, celebrate and to kick up our heels a little…or a lot! I will admit to dancing the night away at Sparklecorn, simply because I could and had great company with whom to do so! The private parties gave us so many options of things to do and places to go that we could hardly decide what to do and when. Yet the official BlogHer events were also great simply because they were inclusive and a great place to catch up with anyone and everyone.

And of course, we have barely mentioned New York City. Oh, New York, how I loved you. What a great first BlogHer experience. I won’t speak for Michelle or Carrie Anne, but only for myself when I say it really put the icing on my cupcake to come to such a great event, meet so many really amazing people and then also have NYC as a backdrop and easy distraction for down time. It was simply wonderful.

We loved that the Hilton New York supplied us all with free wifi in our rooms and conference rooms! This was a huge part of our weekend as we were all tweeting under the hashtags #BlogHer and #BlogHer10 – and honestly, it was a great way to track people down. Most of us were on Twitter on and off all weekend long, tweeting event details, trying to meet up with people or simply finding the people we were meeting so we could stay connected on Twitter after the conference. I also was impressed to see the hotel tweeting away with us, checking in, making sure everyone was having a great weekend and comfortable stay. Thank you, @HiltonNewYork, it was all really well done!

Special thanks to the Hilton New York and BlogHer organizers who did an amazing job making sure we were all well fed with buffet breakfast, lunch and a generous afternoon snack. We didn’t need to worry about going hungry! As well, we were all thankful that PUR had a refill station located in the main area so attendees could ensure they stayed hydrated during the conference. We were all happily filling bottles to take with us wherever we went.

We enjoyed a priceless weekend of connection and inspiration. We were able to open our minds, our hearts and our hands as we learned, listened and bonded. We made new friends who we will welcome to EverythingMom with open arms, and we cemented friendships and the bonds of our community with those who were already close to us.

BlogHer ’10 brought together an amazing group of people, mainly women (but some great guys too!) who all came together to celebrate what we have in common: our love of this online world, and of those who both seek and create community within it.

We were proud to be part of such an amazing weekend and can’t wait for BlogHer ’11 in San Diego! See you there!

Just as EverythingMom is the place to discover Everything for mom, H&M is the place to discover Everything for back to school fashion. You will find cool tops from $5.95 and dresses from $14.95, to sweaters from $12.95 and all the accessories to complete the look, H&M has something for every personality and style at the best prices. Visit www.hm.com/kids to see the full line of fun back to school fashions and locate a store location near you.

Day Three (Saturday)

Even after a full day of sessions and parties on the Friday, everyone was up and eager to start the second and final day of the BlogHer conference (hangover or not).

Carrie Anne had the chance to attend the Scholastic Blogger Breakfast at their office where she learned about the new fall releases, changes to the school B00k Club program and a new Read Every Day, Lead a Better Life initiative. Plus she had a chance to visit the Scholastic Store and meet some celebrities.

Back at the conference the day was packed with another full set of new sessions. There was something for everyone. Interested in improving your writing? There were sessions on publishing or humor writing. Looking to strengthen the business aspect of your blog? There were sessions on networking toward a job or how to pitch potential companies. There were sessions for fitness bloggers, personal bloggers, writers who use their blogs to affect change in the world.

Sometimes sessions that would interest you would overlap but thankfully BlogHer had a plan and live blogged every session. So if you missed a session or couldn’t attend BlogHer at all, you can read all the sessions on their site.

Michelle took some time to visit the sponsored suites located within the Hilton New York’s rooms, like the Ecco suite where members could pre-book a foot message and pedicure or the Hershey suite where you could actually make s’mores over  fit pit (not sure how that passed fire code). None of the EverythingMom team came with kids but KMart did sponsor a child care suite during the conference sessions for parents who did. And if the whole conference experience was a little over whelming, BlogHer also offered a retreat in the Serenity Suite, hosted by a rotating volunteer roster of bloggers.

From all the parties and events and booths we visited, we did accumulate a lot of swag. Some was great and worth squeezing into an already overstuffed suitcase, others not really necessary. To avoid unwanted swag being dumped in the garbage, which isn’t really environmentally friendly, P&G sponsored a Swag Exchange. That coffee mug you don’t want may be just the ticket for someone else. Before heading into a night a final parties we did a purge at the Swag Exchange. Jen even found another Mr. PotatoHead to take home to her kids. This was just one of the many initiatives taken on by BlogHer this year to try and make the conference more green.

Michelle and Carrie Anne hopped in a cab over to ELF’s (Eyes Lips Face) new studio for a little Games and Glamour event. There they had a sneak peek at the new fall line-up from ELF. Their make-up line isn’t yet available in Canada but they are working towards getting it up here next year. The Game portion of the event was playing with Xbox’s new Kinect gaming system. Kinect works with Xbox 360 and uses a sensor to register your body’s movement versus using a handheld remote. Very cool! Toss in some dangerously delicious watermelon martini’s and Michelle and Carrie Anne had a hard time tearing themselves away.

But this was the last night of BlogHer. The last night to connect and hang out with some amazing women who, many of which, we only knew online. Tonight was the night to let loose at the two official BlogHer parties: Sparklecorn and CheeseburgHer.

Both parties were full of energy and everyone let their hair down and just had a great time. There was no differences between newbies and veteran attendees, well known and unknown bloghers, everyone was equal and had an equally fun time. Feather boas, tutus and glow bracelets graced the dance floor of the Sparklecorn party and by the looks of this video it was another great success. At CheeseburgHer, people danced on the beds, tossed pillows (yes there were beds and pillows at this party) and donned creative McDonald’s paper bag party hats. This year they even had a hat decorating contest and had set-up a decoration station full of tools to get your creative juices flowing. And the winners were pretty creative.

At the end of the night, or maybe it was early morning, the EverythingMom teamed turned in. Carrie Anne would be heading home the next day and Michelle and Jen would follow on Monday. There was a lot to digest from the last three days (and a lot to try and fit into their luggage).

Just as EverythingMom is the place to discover Everything for mom, H&M is the place to discover Everything for back to school fashion. You will find cool tops from $5.95 and dresses from $14.95, to sweaters from $12.95 and all the accessories to complete the look, H&M has something for every personality and style at the best prices. Visit www.hm.com/kids to see the full line of fun back to school fashions and locate a store location near you.

Day Two (Friday)

BlogHer begins! Friday got off to a busy start with a Newbie Breakfast and then the official Welcome and State of the Blogosphere, featuring the founders of BlogHer: Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins and Elisa Camahort Page. During breakfast they also revealed that BlogHer ’11 will be held in San Diego, CA next August!  Visit the BlogHer ‘11 site for more details, including registration.

Friday was also the first day we could attend sessions. Each day had three time slots for sessions, and in each of the three time slots were seven choices of how to spend our time. Topics ranged from “Moving People to Action” to “Offline Networking for Bloggers” and much more. There was something for everyone! If you missed a section or were unable to attend BlogHer ‘10, you can find all the sessions online.

We also took time to duck into the Expo Hall to check out the booths from conference sponsors. So many interesting people to meet and products to check out – I especially liked being able to send a Mr. PotatoHead postcard home to my kids at the Playskool booth. Clever idea!

Also nice to see was a special book corner where you could purchase books published by some of the BlogHer attendees. There was also a book signing schedule included in our conference program. A great chance to browse some awesome books and meet the authors!

We made quite a splash wandering around in our EverythingMom/H&M shirts and our tutus! Tutus, you ask? What were we doing running around in tutus? EverythingMom had heard how Catherine Connors (who writes the blog Her Bad Mother) has a nephew named Tanner, who has Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy. Catherine has been raising funds and awareness for this disease and families with terminally ill children. There were many ways to get involved before and during the conference. We decided the EverythingMom team should spend some time in tutus as well! You can read all about Tanner and the tutus here.

After the afternoon sessions, there was a short break to change or freshen up before getting the evening going with the Community Keynote: BlogHer Voices of the Year. Curated by Eden Kennedy, this was an amazing and often moving collection of selected blog posts from chosen attendees.  If you missed this part of the evening or would like to read the posts in their entirety, you can find links to all the finalists here.

Michelle and Carrie Anne attended the Sweets in the City party hosted by Sharpie and @TheBigToyBook. There were delicious cupcakes and wine served in glasses they could decorate with colourful Sharpie pens, plus cool toys to take home to the kids. Carrie Anne’s kids love the Perplexus, one of the toys given away to attendees. I met up with some favourite bloggers and friends for a lovely dinner at Bistro Milano instead, and what a great time we had.

After the Voices of the Year speeches, there was a reception, then the evening got underway with the BlogHer Voices of the Year Gala and Art Auction, curated by Kirtsy.

Once all the official BlogHer events were done, the EverythingMom team jumped on a Night Bus Tour organized by @NYCityMama and Tours4Fun. A great way to see the city lights!

Another busy day at BlogHer! It was a great day, full of learning, networking, and meeting other bloggers. We ordered room service and headed to bed, ready to face the next and last day of the conference!

Just as EverythingMom is the place to discover Everything for mom, H&M is the place to discover Everything for back to school fashion. You will find cool tops from $5.95 and dresses from $14.95, to sweaters from $12.95 and all the accessories to complete the look, H&M has something for every personality and style at the best prices. Visit www.hm.com/kids to see the full line of fun back to school fashions and locate a store location near you.

Day One (Thursday):

I arrived at the Hilton New York in midtown Manhattan first, excited to see the city and to be able to meet people as they arrived from various Canadian and US cities.

There was a Kodak Big Apple Bus Tour on Thursday, and Kodak had generously provided an EasyShare M580 digital camera with which to enjoy the day. EverythingMom was invited to take part, but sadly, I wasn’t feeling well enough to attend - with temperatures in the mid-thirties, it was a steamy day in the city! However, we would have loved to take in the sights with Kodak and I can’t wait to learn more about the EasyShare!

Michelle and Carrie Anne followed later in the day and it was time to get our party on! Thursday was a whirlwind day of introductions, connections and celebrations as we came together. It was considered the kickoff night of the conference, so there were no sessions booked - just events both large and small. EverythingMom was there to start things off with parties on Thursday.

Carrie Anne took in the Crazy Beautiful “I heart New York” social in the late afternoon at the Warwick Hotel, across from the Hilton New York (even volunteering to have makeup airbrushed on her!) And she and I met for the first time at the Canadian Embassy party with MomCentral Canada, as it got things going with the great atmosphere at Faces and Names, just a short walk from the hotel. There was a chance to have our picture taken with a Mountie as we came in, a signature cocktail and a crowd ready to enjoy. Fabulous ideas from even more fabulous hosts: @mc_canada, @bunchfamily and @sweetmamadotca.

From the Canadian Embassy party, the EverythingMom team jumped in a cab and headed uptown to the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Bloggers Night Out party. Held right in the offices of the magazine, we wandered halls to the event room and even peeked into a test kitchen! We enjoyed the event, the view and even better – met some of the creative team at Martha Stewart. We very much enjoyed a conversation with Anna Last, editor-in-chief of Everyday Food, a Martha Stewart magazine.

Back into a cab we jumped, this time back to the hotel so Carrie Anne could head to what turned out to be one of her favourite events: an intimate DinHer party for a group of bloggers hosted by Maria over at BOREDmommy. Michelle and I headed in to chat with some of our favourite bloggers at the BlogHer ‘10 People’s Party. After making the rounds here, Michelle and I headed to the Schick Intuition Plus K.I.S.S. & Tell party and then finally called it a night. These were just a few of the parties and private events scheduled for the Thursday night. Since the BlogHer conference and key events were planned to start the next day, it seemed as though many companies tried to schedule their events for Thursday, making it a crazy night indeed. It would be safe to say our BlogHer ’10 conference experience started off with a bang. We couldn’t wait to see what the next day would hold!

Just as EverythingMom is the place to discover Everything for mom, H&M is the place to discover Everything for back to school fashion. You will find cool tops from $5.95 and dresses from $14.95, to sweaters from $12.95 and all the accessories to complete the look, H&M has something for every personality and style at the best prices. Visit www.hm.com/kids to see the full line of fun back to school fashions and locate a store location near you.

We get requests all.the.time for help with mom blogs.

If you can make blogs / websites look pretty or make them work properly, add your FREE listing to our new category Blog/Website help.

• Getting Pregnant
• Pregnancy Symptoms
• Giving Birth
• Natural Birth
• Pregnancy Wellness
• Pregnancy Exams
• Pregnancy Health
• Pregnancy Products
• Postpartum
• Baby Names
• Birth Stories

Requirements

• One original pregnancy article per week
• Participating in our Pregnancy Group at least 3-5 times per week by encouraging group engagement, welcoming members, adding conversation starters etc…

If you love community and you know Everything Pregnancy, please shoot off an email to hi (at) everythingmom.com with the following details:

1. Your Name
2. Your email
3. Your website URL or links to writing samples
4. Your monthly rate expectations

Thank you for your interest, we’ll contact applicants who we feel are a great match!

I’ll be blogging all about my experience and sharing some conversations that came out of “One Girl Can:  A Discussion on Mentorship” that was held in conjunction with the G(irls) 20 Summit. In particular, I will share a video interview I did with Jess Weiner where we talked about self-esteem in mothers and how it affects parenting our children.

But first, I have to tell you that I was incredibly moved by the entire experience that day.

Here’s a story for you.

That day was my birthday.  I down played it, told very few and just made it be like every other day.  Because I did not want to draw attention to (or celebrate) me.

After experiencing that event, I saw that is just plain nuts.

We must celebrate ourselves, every day.

I tweeted out:

And almost everyone responded a bounding YES!

Many of us ride that rollercoaster, some swoop higher or lower, but we all ride it.  I ride it.  Regularly.

So I am starting a movement - right here on EverythingMom.

I have started a group for moms to come together and share our highs and lows, talk about them, get real about them and manage them.  In our Mom Esteem group we can share tools and explore ideas that will bring us to strong place of modeling positive self-esteem for our children.

I am looking for a Life Coach who specializes in self-esteem to partner with EverythingMom in this pursuit.  This involves:

• Coaching me (Michelle, the founder of EverythingMom) once a week for 12 weeks
• I will blog about our coaching and my journey in hopes of sharing my insight with moms everywhere.  Each post will be linked back to our chosen Life Coach’s website.
• Be available for potential coaching clients from our Mom Esteem Group, perhaps even setting up a group coaching program.

If you are a Life Coach and this sounds like all kinds of fun, then drop me an email to hi [at] everythingmom [dot] com expressing your interest and we can set up a sample session to see if we are a fit.

And moms, come join me in our Mom Esteem group, because really?  I don’t want to do this alone.

Stuff is good, and at EM we talk about a LOT of stuff.  In fact, we talk about Everything.  But what has been missing through all this talk is a broader, deeper sense of connection.  Relationships.

Sure, many women have forged wonderful relationships through EM.  But they did that all on their own, not with any help on our part.  (We women are good at that friendship thing.)

But we want to help — more.  We want you to have buckets of opportunities for friendship and connection here at EM.  We don’t want you to have to work at it, sort through all the stuff to find it.

So we’re getting rid of stuff to open up a space for natural connections.  We are replacing our Forums with focused, meaningful conversations.

What would you talk about…

• If you had a friend who would really listen to you, with her whole heart and soul
• If you knew that you would not be judged
• If you knew that she got you
• If you knew that somehow just by talking to her, you felt wonderful, inspired, relaxed, giddy, energized, peaceful — YOU.
• Would you talk about something serious, light, humorous?

We’re that friend.  With our new Mom Chat:  Tell us Everything section, we’ve created a space for you to join focused conversations and build relationships with other moms who just get you.  With no fluff.

We’ve hired a new Community Manager, Jen Taylor to help build relationships and community within EverythingMom.com.  Jen will be facilitating our Mom Chats as well as engaging Everything Community.  For those of you who follow Jen through Twitter, you know that she is one of the friendliest gals around.  So what better person to join our team to spark connections?

ALSO!  We are itching to tell you about some terrific online and offline events coming up, stay tuned for more deets coming soon!

In the meantime, please hop over to Jen’s profile and give her big welcome hugs!  Then mosey on over to our very first Mom Chat - we’re talking friendships!  (Fitting, don’t cha think?)

Community rocks.  I love how (most) everyone pulls together through this new landscape in an effort to determine the best way to navigate the ever changing “guidelines”.  For us, this is not a discussion on monetization and revenue, we have built in alternative revenue streams to manage that aspect of our business.

We all have our individual business models, content guidelines and opinions on what makes the wheel turn during this new era of publishing.  As Eden Spodek said, we have much to learn from each other.

A few weeks ago, we launched our paid reviews through our Mom Influencers.  Did that ever stir the embers in the discussions.  Thankfully, mostly everyone saw that we had the right intentions behind our program.  No, we were not trying to make a buck.  We were trying to build an integrity factor into the much debated process of blogger reviews.

Integrity is Everything.  No, this is not about Commerce vs. Credibility.  It is about protecting reviews from the bad apples for both the readers and the brands.  IMO.

We feel that free products = payment for some bloggers who may have felt they had to say something nice because they received the product for free.  Certainly our reviews were not tainted with this brush and nor were many other bloggers providing reviews with integrity.

However, some bloggers don’t necessarily row in the same boat.  I have read terrible stories of bloggers scamming the system by not even testing the product for review, selling it for money, writing a “fake” review and moving on.  (No, I will not post links because we are not in the business of pot stirring.)

We desperately wanted to create a program through our Mom Influencers that would hopefully try and avoid such nonsense.  A program that created a win for both our readers AND the brands that wanted to share their story.

See, we feel there is a difference between an individual blog and a program that gathers a group of bloggers for the purposes of reviews.  No longer is it simply our own integrity on the line but that of numerous other personalities, opinions and styles.

We wanted to find a way of publishing reviews through our network that put a stop to the nonsense.  “Hey, we’re gonna pay you whether you actually like the product or not, so at least do your readers and the brand the decency of fully reviewing the product and sharing your honest thoughts.”

But apparently that has not landed so well throughout the community.

Some, although adamantly disagreeing with us, have supported us in trying to find a better way to manage the process.  (We ♥ you, you know who you are!)

And some have just attacked us.

And yes — it hurt.

C’est la vie.  We’re tough cookies.

We know in our hearts that we are trying to create content that serves the best interest of our readers and brands.

How do we continue providing product coverage with the general consensus being paid reviews = tainted content?

We simply can NOT put ourselves in the tainted content category.  We won’t.

But what is the answer?

We are not a review blog.  We are on online magazine that features relevant, engaging content on Everything Mom, not just products.  We cannot take up a huge chunk of our editor’s time simply writing reviews.  And not pay her for it.

One very smart gal told us that we can just say no.  So that’s what we are going to do.

Say no.  Unless it totally rocks.

Starting now, everything you see on EM is Editorial.  Unless it’s not (marked with ADVERTISEMENT of ADVERTORIAL).  That is what the community wants.  We listened.  We always listen.  We learn, grow and create what the community wants.

We are going to replace our reviews category with a new column - Everything Fabulous.  We are going to pay an editor to find what’s hot for moms and their families.  In this sense, our editor is still getting compensated for her time, but the content is created from a place of service to our readers vs requests from brands.

Sure, brands can send our editor products, ideas or invite us to experience your story through an event.  In fact we’d love to hear about products that might be useful to families.  However, we will not “review” your product.  We may feature it in our Everything Fabulous column, or we might even write a stand alone piece if we feel that would work better.

But there are no guarantees that products will be featured in our Everything Fabulous column.

We are no longer being run by requests for coverage.  If brands want immediate coverage, or guaranteed coverage — we invite you to purchase advertising.

Plus, we will still have our Mom Influencers who focus on reviews. We will, however, remove anyone from the program who does not show as much integrity as we do for our editorial reviews.  Include the good and the bad, put your full efforts into the review for the benefits or your readers etc.  We need to respect our community and since they view paid reviews as tainted content, it does mean our Mom Influencers will no longer be paid. And just like us, our Mom Influencers can just-say-no.

Like social media, we’re young and trying to figure out what works best for you, our readers; the brands who want to speak to them and ourselves. This probably won’t be the last change as this is a growing and evolving environment, but we feel this is one step closer to meeting everyone’s needs. We hope going forward we can all continue to educate and support each other as we learn together.

Sound good?  Disagree?  We’re still listening, we’ll never stop.